I usually enjoy making all my own travel arrangments, however, as a first time traveller to Italy I am frustrated that my emails not being answered by Italian establishments. For example, I sent an email to Galleria in Venice, they responded yes ,they had vacancies, but they have not confirmed receipt of my credit card info. I think I need a travel agent to handle all the lodging and travel arrangements- is there such a specialist for Italy ?

Yeah, this occurs quite a bit. In Paris it happened to me a few times. Just email them again and ask for confirmation. Most times everything about the reservation is fine and the hotel has it on their books. They just don't think it's really necessary to confirm back to you.

Whenever I make arrangements by e-mail and I often do so I usually specifically request that the hotel send me a confirmation e-mail after I've sent the credit card details.

So far I haven't had any problems. I don't think you need to resort to a travel agent who may very well be doing the same thing.

Send another request for confirmation.

I agree that sometimes they don't think it's necessary to confirm they got your credit card details unless you ask them to. I always do that and have never had any problem. When I make the reservations far in advance I also email them a week or so before I leave. I've done this with over 40 hotels and B&Bs in Europe in the last 5 years and never once had a problem with a hotel not having my reservation.

Also how long has it been since you emailed them? Sometimes servers go down, people get really busy, etc. Give them a week or so.

I had this same problem a few months ago when reserving a room in Switzerland. I learned that some e-mail services do not work as well as others for e-mailing Europe. I sent several e-mails to Swiss hotels from work and never got a reply. I even called one of the hotels and they told me they got the e-mail and did reply. I then looked at this board and found a similar question to yours. On that thread a Fodorite advised someone to use hotmail. I opened a hotmail account, sent the inquiries to the same hotels, and got immediate replies. I'm not saying that is necessarily the case with your situation, but it worked for me.

Okoshi,

Do you use AOL for e-mail? In the past few months I've had a lot of problems of not getting e-mails in AOL. When I was planning my trip to Rome earlier this year I had the limo company and other suppliers all telling me that they had sent me e-mails that I never received. Then my sister also told me e-mails to my account were being returned. It was hit or miss. So I opened an e-mail account in hotmail and have not had any problems since.

For what it is worth, my husband always faxes reservation requests and CC info after we have ascertained that the room we want is available, via the hotel's website. They *always* immediately fax back a confirmation. I realize this only works for those who have easy access to a fax machine.

As mentioned directly above, some hotels seem to still be more comfortable and prompt dealing with reservations thru fax and telephone.

I don't have experience with Italy, but have never had that problem with hotels in other countries. I have had ones not respond to emails requesting rates and vacancy info and usually that is because they don't have any or aren't concerned about getting customers.

I've never had a hotel that did not respond when I made a reservation and gave a credit card number for confirmation. I always do specifically tell them to send me a confirmation they received it, however.

As for the email problems, some of my thoughts from above are that I don't think some email services have trouble emailing Europe. The problems some noted were with emails being received on AOL and some work system. I suspect that could be due to some spam filtering or blocking thing. I have AOL and their automatic spam filter is terrible IMO (it blocks a lot of normal mail), and I have it turned off. It was turned on by mistake or by default, I don't know, but I wasn't aware of it. If you have AOL and aren't aware, be sure to examine whether you have their spam filter turned on.

Some companies block email automatically with certain kinds of attachments, also or might have some other spam filtering thing you don't know about. I have to deliver certain files to clients by email and have found several companies now who block all attachments that end in ZIP (from WINZIP).

I wouldn't personally recommend a hotmail account as I block all hotmail addresses from my inbox because it is notoriously used by spammers (I know others who block it also) and I don't think they have as good service or features as Yahoo free email. I like Yahoo a lot better. I kind of doubt if that is the problem here, though. I'd just be sure to request a confirmation email when making one and follow up with the ones where you did to make sure.

We had the same problem with a hotel in Nice last month. They never replied or confirmed the reservation after we fax'ed them our CC info until we pestered them a few times. All was in order, though.

By the way, unless I'm on a secure web site, I never give out my CC info on the internet. I always use the fax for that. I don't want the info in an e-mail to be hijack'ed.

I agree, the problem may have to do with AOL if you are using it for emails. I have also sent emails to hotels and never got replies and when confronted they say they did reply. One hotel even attached the sent email with confirmation it was sent to my AOL address. On other occasions recipients say they have not received my messages!

AOL is really stupid and it's hit and miss many times. I find that having a Yahoo! email works effectively.

I make my own hotel reservations and have found the same problem. I have found the fastest is to fax, they seem to respond in a day.

VERY VERY INTERESTING.

I have posted about this before, don't remember which thread.

But this thread gives me new insight. Again I am not receiving email responses from my hotel for Rome. I too use AOL mail.

When I made my reservations many months ago I did not hear back. Finally I did call and they were very surprised I did not receive their communications. They had received mine though. They ended up faxing my confirmation.

I think I will try to contact them again and this time give them my alternate email address, non AOL.

I did not want to call again because of the expense. Hmmm...I think I remember a post or two that had some sort of number you dial first that makes calls to Italy much less expensive. Does anyone remember the digits?

one pretty cheap international calling service is 10-10-297. It's only 3 cents a minute (not sure if there is a base fee). they have a web site where you can read the details

www.1010297.com

Thanks Christina. I checked out the site and some other related sites. Yet again, confusing. Well at least when it comes to 10-10 or dial around plans for cell phones.

Just thought I would tell you what just happened.

A few days ago I sent some emails to the hotel I reserved in Rome. They have not been responding. This happend months ago when I first contacted them. Finally we had to work by fax. They did eventually respond to one of my faxes by email.

Well, I called them this morning and they have not received any of my most recent emails. I had even given them a non AOL email address.

Also, I signed up for everdial.com dial around service the other day. So now my phone calls won't put me in the poor house.

I just checked my alternate email address, the one I have via Yahoo. I decided on Septemper 10th to try to send them mail through this mail service instead of my regular one. I don't know if they found them because I called them again or not.

There were a number of emails from my hotel. The writer starts the letter off with : "First I apologize for trouble caused you, but it seems our e-mails have some problems: therefore sometimes we do not receive, either send messages. I'm really, really sorry for this! It is for this reason that I have decided to send this message also by air mail: in this case, you and me are sure you will have all the information requested!"

I think the reason AOL customers aren't receiving these e-mails is because of the spam filters on aol, several of my friends have had this problem with international e-mails.

Hi - I recently made reservations at the Hotel Barberini in Rome through Romeby.com and received numerous email confirmations. Romeby.com sent an email immediately that the request was receive; then I received an email directly from the hotel within 1/2 hour stating availability; within 2 hours had my reservation confirmation & voucher. I use Verizon for my email and they did block the attachment but not the email. Had to use my work email to print out the attachment.

I would only send my credit card info on a secure site directly through a reservation service or the hotel. Never, ever include credit card info on a regular email -- it is fair game to be hijacked.

Good luck!

okoshi, just call them directly. Its not that expensive and you can discuss what you want and ask them what types of rooms they have and if they have any special rates. Having a real conversation is far quicker than exchanging a series of emails.